A200 Block 4 Breaking the Chains Flashcards
Revolts
1816 Barbados slaves rise up due to Wilberforce’s well intentioned Slave Registration Bill, causes Wilberforce to remove bill and end career, turning to evangelical training for pastors. Revolt caused by planters intransigence to ameliorating the shaves conditions anything between 150-1000 slaves dead (Beckles H 1985)
1823 Demerara (Guyana) rebellion sets back abolitionist cause, largely non-violent but, caused by alleged harsh treatment 100 -250 dead
1831, Sam Sharp work stoppage rebellion, Christmas (critical harvest time, caused in part by plantation owners whipping up fears of cessation, slave insurrection and threats, Sharp was ready to turn to military resistance 200 slaves killed by planters 350 sentenced to death including Sharp - problem partly caused by plantation owners and Jamaica Courant editor William Bruce refusing to print William IV declaration telling slaves they were not yet free
Acts and Bills to End
1807 William Wilberforce - The Slave Trade Act ends slave trade in Britain and its Empire, but slaves already in work to remain slaves, slaves lot to be made better by gradually improving conditions and Government propaganda
1833 Slavery Abolition Act
1834 Slave Emancipation Act ends slavery in the British Empire
1838 31st July all Empire’s slaves freed (delayed due to plantation owner’s tactics)
Action by Abolitionists
William Wilberforce, parliamentarian and social reformer, evangelical Christian, factory improvements and slave abolition - Clapham Sect
Thomas Clarkson - Clapham Sect, churchman, founder member of The Committee for the abolition of the African Slave Trade involves Quakers
Granville Sharp - befriended a beaten slave, Jonathan Strong, overturns master’s attempt to sell Strong back into slavery in the Caribbean, founder of the Sierra Leone settlement project for slaves to return to Africa
William Nibb, missionary and Schoolmaster, Baptist missionary who advocated slave freedom and stood up for them in court, his testimony to the Parliamentary Commissions post the 1831 rising such as to Lord Horwick who was committed to political reform accelerated the freeing of slaves for both the good of whites and blacks in 1833, Nibb believe Sharp to be a moral figure
Action by Abolitionists II
Zachary Macaulay - collected a large volume of anti slavery evidence (was a statistician by profession) member of The Clapham Sect of evangelical reformers, editor of The Anti Slavery Reporter publication
Elizabeth Heyrick, Quaker, campaigned for a sugar boycott, visited grocers to advise not sticking slave grown goods, 1824 pamphlet ‘Immediate not Gradual Abolition’
Rev Henry Bleby Methodist minister who interview Sharp post rebellion and confirms that it would not be a black takeover but a transition to wage labour but that they must have freedom , by force if necessary, he criticises the plantation owners
Pamphleting
1823 - An Appeal to call for the end of slaver
Society for abolition petitions for an end to female flogging
Scriptures
Evangelicals state that freedom is based on Scripture
Planters use obscure bible passages to advocate slavery ‘God had wanted Africans to be slaves’
Petitions
1828 - 1830 Parliament receives 5484 petitions for abolition, hundreds of thousands sign, 10500 in one Manchester petition alone 20% of the city’s population
1792 as a result of Wilberforce’s efforts, a bill, 519 petitions, signed by 350000 people
